Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies

Astrophysics Latest News

2nd October 2015 – DIAS helps UCD and NUIG win major H2020 project

The European Commission is investing some 140M in a range of High Performance Computing projects across Europe.

DIAS has been instrumental over the last decade in building up Ireland’s High Performance Computing infrastructure and is delighted that, as a result of this investment, we have now been able to work with UCD and NUIG to bring the leadership of one of the “Centres of Excellence” to Ireland.

The E-CAM Centre of Excellence will be coordinated by UCD, is chaired by Prof Luke Drury from DIAS, and has the Irish Centre for High-Performance Computing, hosted by NUIG, as a major partner. It will run for 5 years and has a total approved budget of 4.8MEuro. The official launch will be on the 20th October in the Royal Irish Academy.

4 September 2015 – Former DIAS Scholar is awarded Royal Society – SFI University Research Fellowship

The Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies (DIAS) is proud to announce that one of the first Science Foundation Ireland funded Royal Society research fellowships in Ireland has been awarded to a former DIAS scholar, Dr Jonathan Mackey, currently working in the University of Cologne.

His website is http://hera.ph1.uni-koeln.de/~mackey/index.html. Jonathan will hold his fellowship in the School of Cosmic Physics where he will continue his work using high performance computing to simulate the extreme environments around the most massive stars in the Galaxy. One of his most recent works, published last year in the prestigious journal Nature (2014, vol 512, pp 282-285), provides for the first time a convincing explanation for the dense shell of gas observed around the giant star Betelgeuse and has important implications for the dynamical evolution of supernova remnants. His work will be supported by the strong links between DIAS and the Irish Centre for High-End Computing (ICHEC).

7th January 2014 – DIAS Academic begins term as Chair of the European Space Agency’s Astronomy Working Group

Professor Luke Drury, Director of the School of Cosmic Physics, has commenced a 3-year term as Chair of the European Space Agency’s Astronomy Working Group. The European Space Agency (ESA) is an intergovernmental organisation dedicated to the exploration of space, with 20 member states. ESA’s Astronomy Working Group (AWG) provides scientific advice mainly to the Space Science Advisory Committee (SSAC). The Chair of the working group is also a member of the SSAC.

Professor Drury is a member of the Council of the Institute and Director of the School of Cosmic Physics. He is Senior Professor and Head of the Astronomy and Astrophysics Section within the School. He is currently President of the Royal Irish Academy.